Martin Marietta

DEFENSE CONTRACT. Martin Marietta Ordnance Systems has won a $20.2 million contract from the Army to produce advanced mortar systems and ammunition, the company said Monday. Ordnance Systems, a division of Martin Marietta Electronics & Missiles Group, has its administrative headquarters in Orlando. The division has its main operations in Milan, Tenn., where it employs 1,450 people in management of the Army's largest ammunition production facility. Ordnance Systems 1989 revenues totaled more than $21 million.

Howard "Howie" Grant Barrett wasn't your typical technology-oriented Martin Marietta employee. The former Marine graduated from a watchmaker college and an art school before working as an art director for the defense contractor from 1969 until he retired in 1992. The 84-year-old Orlando resident died of lung cancer June 28. "In 1969, we were living in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., and my dad was recruited by Martin," said Marc Barrett, one of his four sons. "He was hired to start a design group there.

Thirty years ago this week, the mug shots of eight people were splashed across the front page of the Orlando Sentinel, mine among them. Calling ourselves the Pershing Plowshares, we had taken part in a spectacular Easter Sunday break-in of the then-Martin Marietta Corp. plant on Sand Lake Road as part of an anti-nuclear-weapons protest. At the time, Martin - now Lockheed Martin - was manufacturing the Pershing II missile, a Cold War weapon system that many believed represented a dangerous escalation of the nuclear-arms race.

From a life at sea to a career in the aerospace industry, Nils Gustafsson had an insatiable curiosity that served him well. Born April 2, 1923, in Goteborg, Sweden, Gustafsson dropped out of high school but never stopped learning. After serving as an infantryman for the Swedish army during World War II, he worked as a radio operator on merchant marine ships, learning skills that would one day lead to a career in the aerospace industry at Martin Marietta. One of Gustafsson's first projects at the Martin Company (which would become Martin Marietta and later Lockheed Martin)

There's an old photo Bob Montgomery liked to show people of him as a baby seated on his mother's lap inside his parents' Ford Model A - and another picture of him with his elderly parents standing outside the Ford Model A he rebuilt as an adult from the chassis up. He restored two of the antique cars and belonged to both the Heart of Florida Model A Club and The Model A's of Greater Orlando. "His love for those cars never died," said his daughter Debra Montgomery. Robert L. Montgomery - Model A enthusiast, Martin Marietta engineer and former mayor of Oakland - died July 16 of complications related to Parkinson's disease.

Gene Roberts was a precocious child with the intelligence and audacity to create havoc. As a boy, he ran a line between his second-story bedroom window and the second-story window of his next-door friend. He made a motorized device that ran along the line with an small explosive which he detonated when it passed above the heads of his mother and her neighbor as they conversed below. "My grandmother screamed and ran into the house thinking the world was going to end," said Lisa Roberts, his daughter.

Winter Park resident George Seel loved seeing the start and completion of a construction project, having been a key player in several landmark developments from Walt Disney World to Orlando International Airport. "He was always involved, up until the time of his death," said George's son Larry Seel of Winter Park. "There are many engineers that looked up to him and respected his decisions. " Beyond helping to transform the Orlando area, Seel was known for helping children and volunteering at several organizations such as the Boggy Creek Boys Camp.

Joseph Charles Archemidi "Joe" Sanford, a World War II bombardier, was on his 31 s t mission when his aircraft was shot down as it flew over Austria on Aug. 3, 1944. Before he jumped out of the plane, Sanford saw the bomb bay area filling up with aviation fuel, and his pilot and co-pilot passed out, likely from the fumes. Sanford helped them gain consciousness - an act he would later receive the Purple Heart for - and though the entire crew made it out of the plane safely, they were all captured and taken to a prisoner-of-war camp, his family said.

Bob Flint felt at ease on the water. For 20 years, he traveled the world as an enlisted member of the U.S. Navy . After he retired from service in the 1980s, Flint went on to join the United States Power Squadron, a non-profit maritime organization whose mission is to teach boater safety. And at his home in Casselberry , paintings of ships and lighthouses decorated the walls. "He had a love of the sea," said Janet Flint, his wife of 16 months. Flint died Monday from complications of brain cancer . He was 68. A native of New York, Flint was born in the Bronx , but grew up on Long Island . After attending Iowa State University, Flint left school and joined the Navy, following in the path of his grandfather and father.

Bob Bradford was as comfortable coaching his sons' Little League team, checking his daughters' homework or kayaking down a river as he was riding a Harley down Interstate 4 or troubleshooting a military-weapons plant. A soft-spoken family man on one hand and an adventurer on the other, Bradford had a zest for life that took him from the routine to the exotic; from parent-teacher meetings, fundraisers and Scout troops to travels around the world, his wife and friends say. The Orlando resident died Aug. 9 from cancer . He was 76. During a 40-year career with the former Martin Marietta Corp., the New Jersey native rose from electrician's helper to facilities supervisor at the company's Orlando missiles unit on Sand Lake Road, his family said.

Martin Marietta Materials will appeal a Delaware court judge's ruling that orders the Raleigh company to suspend for four months all activities related to its hostile takeover bid of rival Vulcan Materials. In a ruling issued late Friday, Delaware Chancellor Leo E. Strine Jr. said Martin Marietta violated a 2010 confidentiality agreement between the two companies. Executives of Martin Marietta and Vulcan had engaged in on-again, off-again discussions about combining for nearly a decade.